Doomsday Wonderland

No human could survive such a traumatic injury.

The corridor was silent. Time ticked by, flowing in a slow viscous manner like sand slipping through a musty hourglass. Bliss waited for a few minutes longer, yet Lin Sanjiu still remained unmoving on the floor.

The incessant whirring noise was diminishing as the air ventilation system slowed to a stop. The remaining fumes lingered thinly in the air, shielding Lin Sanjiu away in the greyish blanket. The little girl who came out of the [Penguin Publishing’s Pop-up Storybook] had completely turned into a zebra. However, she transformed back into a piece of paper a minute later. She fell off the zebra’s skin and laid quietly in a crooked manner on the floor.

The assemblage of monsters and duoluzhongs had ceased all their attacks. The zebra, the headless body, the “Lin Sanjiu” that crawled on the floor, and the puddle of black oil… all of them stared fixedly at the silhouette that laid listlessly in the corner of the wall. The atmosphere was tense and redolent with anticipation. The monsters didn’t receive any order to return to their respective window displays or to continue going forward. In unison, they began to paw at the floor, hissing to the air as they couldn’t wait to shred their target into millions of tiny pieces

“Lin Sanjiu,” Bliss called out, her tone tense and laced thick with trepidation, “Lin Sanjiu!”

The figure on the ground did not respond.

“I have seen through your trick, get up now!” She sounded as eager as her collections. “I know you are not dead yet. You are not a person who would die so easily. Quick, get up now!”

Lin Sanjiu’s spine looked like the letter “z”.

“Lin Sanjiu?”

Bliss called out once more, her voice taking on a doubtful edge.

Suddenly, a slender young girl dressed in a ballerina skirt threw her head backward and an ugly scream tumbled out from the massive hole that split from her mouth to her neck. A commotion began to spread amidst the duoluozhongs. They all hissed and snarled uneasily, rubbing their hands, hooves, and claws together as they spun their heads around. They seemed unable to contain themselves anymore.

“Get back!” Bliss enjoined.

A zebra slowly moved back, heeding her command, but several duoluozhongs ignored her and moved forward. They craned their necks, sniffing loudly in an attempt to catch Lin Sanjiu’s scent that lingered in the air. There was one duoluozhong out of the lot flailed its tail desperately and destroyed one of the lamps in the corner, wanting to vent the swelling desire that was tearing it apart from inside and flush Bliss’s voice out of its head.

Sneering coldly, Bliss did not berate her collections, but instead just clicked her tongue. The clicking sound hit the duoluozhongs like a bolt of lightning. All of them paused and fell silent. Then, one after another, they began to slither back, albeit begrudgingly and unhappily, to their respective window displays, which were sealed by the glass pane formed with the glass shards on the floor.

“Okay, I have locked them all up, you can stand up now,” Bliss laughed. “Don’t worry, even if you jump up now and dash towards the staircase, I’ll need at least two seconds to re-release all of them. You’ll probably have already reached the staircase by that time, right?”

The figure on the floor remained frozen still, sitting in a spine-chilling position that no normal human being could possibly achieve.

“Don’t you want to go to the third floor?” Bliss asked again, a note of hysteria in her voice. “You have only 15 minutes left to check-in. Why don’t you get up now?”

There weren’t any movements in the corridor. The lingering fumes continued to shroud the figure on the floor.

“Is she really dead?” she muttered under her breath, then fell silent. The silence hung heavily over the corridor. Then, after what it seemed like six minutes, she boomed out, shattering the silence of the corridor, “Lin Sanjiu! Enough of your trick! Get up now!”

But there was no reply.

After a few seconds, a single set of footsteps reverberated throughout the building. The footsteps sounded distant, as if they were emerging from the bottom of a lake. The person was walking barefooted. The only thing that gave away the position of its source was the occasional creaks from the floorboard.

In a flash, the subtle footsteps, which nobody could pinpoint the location of, arrived in the corridor where Lin Sanjiu was. A figure clad in a red blouse began to materialize from the air. The coming person had a pair of blue eyes that could burn one’s soul, and right now, there was nothing but anxiety in those blue eyes.

She walked a few steps closer and called out, “Lin San—”

However, she froze midway through her words. Her eyelashes fluttered, as she couldn’t understand the scene in front of her. She looked around and then took a step back.

The floor was empty, and Lin Sanjiu was nowhere to be seen.

Just when Bliss was at a loss, a series of hurried footsteps rang out from behind her. The person did not seem to have any intention of hiding her movement anymore. She leaped into the third floor in the blink of an eye, her footfalls booming across the ceiling and sounding as if the building had been struck by a bolt of thunder.

Bliss jerked her head up. For a moment, a mixture of surprise and relief flowed across her face, and her lips curled up.

“I knew it,” she said, “It’s such a shame that I can’t let you check-in. I promised them that I would hold you down here.”

Lin Sanjiu could hear her voice clearly even though she was now at the end of the corridor on the third floor. She did not have the time to think of how Bliss’s voice could slide into her ears as if she was talking beside her while she was on the second floor. Right now, all she cared about was picking up her speed and running as fast as she could towards the fourth floor, for she was running out of time and Bliss had released her collections upon her once more.

Lin Sanjiu did not turn around to check behind her, so she didn’t know how many monsters were chasing after her right now. She had only ten minutes left to check-in, so she did not have the luxury to engage them in a brawl. All she needed to do now was sprint towards the swimming pool at maximum speed, even if it meant she had to brace against all the attacks thrown at her.

“Hurry up!” Mrs. Manas urged. “Go faster! The [Defense Forcefield] can’t hold up for long. Your Higher Consciousness is depleting!”

Lin Sanjiu wanted to go fast as well, but the staircase towards the fourth floor was the longest out of the three. It spun in mid-air and twisted in an upward spiral towards the fourth floor. Lin Sanjiu hoped that she could run as fast as a leopard. Just as she was making her way up the staircase, she saw something that made her freeze.

Behind her, the wall split open to reveal Bliss, who was now looking at her. Perhaps she did not expect Lin Sanjiu to run out so far in such a short time; she spun around and disappeared into the wall once more.

Lin Sanjiu was certain that she would appear from the wall in front of her.

Gritting her teeth, Lin Sanjiu stormed up the staircase and threw herself into the arched doorway. Then, the familiar swimming pool that shimmered under the sunlight appeared in her sight.

At the same time, Bliss emerged from the arched doorway as well, though she was still a little tad slower than Lin Sanjiu. Since the swimming pool was surrounded by windows and there was no wall for her to blend into, she went after Lin Sanjiu on foot, her red blouse and hair fluttered gracefully behind her.

Without wasting a second, Lin Sanjiu plunged into the pool. She remembered that the checkpoint pocket dimension was situated at the corner of the pool where Bliss had brought her once.

Gone.

She looked at her shoes, stupefied. Above her, the rippling, soft light beat out. She looked around in the pool, yet she still couldn’t find the word “checkpoint pocket dimension”.

‘Could it be that I remembered it wrong?’

She glanced up and instantly rejected the idea. Suddenly, she felt a shadow loomed over her.

Bliss was standing by the side of the pool. Her legs were long, the calves and thighs strong. Her fair skin was shrouded underneath her red blouse. Her jet black hair cascaded down and flanked her face.

“It is not here anymore. I moved it away already,” she said, guilt thick in her voice. “I’m really sorry about this, but I can’t let you check-in. I have promised them.”

‘How on earth does she move a checkpoint away?’

Lin Sanjiu stared at her in disbelief.

“So you released all those duoluozhongs and monsters to halt me because you wanted me to believe that the checkpoint was still on the fourth floor?” Lin Sanjiu asked.

Bliss gave a self-deprecating smile and said, “Yes. Didn’t you fake your death as well? It is only fair that I trick you back once. You used the smoke bomb to make your death more realistic. Where did you learn that stunt from? It looked so real and you really gave me a fright, you know?”

Lin Sanjiu’s brain started ringing and she couldn’t hear anything other than Mrs. Manas’s voice. “You have only eight minutes left.” Her voice was solemn. “Think about it. Did you see any checkpoint on your way here?”

“Where is the checkpoint?” Lin Sanjiu asked.

Tilting her head, Bliss did not answer.

“How did you do that? How were you able to move the checkpoint away? It is a pocket dimension!” Lin Sanjiu snapped, lashing out ferociously at Bliss. There was not much time left, and she had had enough of all the crap. She did not know why life loved to pitch her a curveball every time.

As her anger and frustration exploded, she leaped out of the pool and pounced at Bliss. However, as if she had anticipated her movement, Bliss hopped to the back and out of harm’s way with practiced ease. She said, “I can move anything I want in this building. Moving a thing or changing the structure of the building is a piece of cake to me.”

‘Where is the checkpoint? Where could it be if it’s not here? Yu Yuan… Yu Yuan is still waiting for me! I can’t waste my time here!’

Bliss turned around and walked towards another side of the pool. Her red blouse fluttered in the air like a wisp of smoke. “There is no way you can find it,” she said, sadness thick in her voice. “It could be inside any of the window displays, and now, there is no time left for you to check through each one.”